Halloween in Kuala Lumpur!

Our group (now made up of 5) were lucky enough to be able go spend a week in Kuala Lumpur which happened to fall over Halloween. Despite many locals having no idea what Halloween, was resulting in us being some of the only people dressed up in Zouk, we managed to find Halloween themed activities to add to Kuala Lumpur's must do attractions. 

Attractions and activities

1. Sunway lagoon

Sunway lagoon is a mixture of a water park, animal park and theme park. One ticket enables you to access all of these so you can spend the morning on the rides, then see the animals, watching the tigers and bears being fed and then spend the afternoon on the water rides. They claim to have the biggest water ride in Asia which we went on in the middle of a tropical storm as well as an indoor 5D water ride which was one of its highlights. They also have an adventure park area including a flying fox zip Line over part of the water park.

Sunway Lagoon is definitely good value for money. They do however check your bags for food and drink when you go in which meant us waddling in with jam sandwiches, crisps, fruit etc stuffed down our bikini bottoms.... Classy I know!

As it was Halloween weekend, Sunway lagoon held a fright night so we hang around for that after the day time finished. Compared to Thorpe park and other English theme parks, it wasn't as scary and some of the mazes became a little repetitive but the actors were all dressed up really well and it was a good way to spend Halloween. The owner of the park decided to jump out at us whilst we were peaking in a gap in the fence and he told us that the event is up and coming so it's only going to get better, plus he let us queue jump and gave us free sweets, what a nice man!

2. Escape room

Wanting to keep in the Halloween spirits, we spent 45 minutes trying to find our way out of a vampires castle....before he drank our blood. We started out handcuffed together and then had to find clues and work out puzzles to open boxes and doors, we massively failed but lived to tell the tale.

3. Batu caves

A short LRT ride away from China town is the Batu caves where you climb a number of stairs and walk through some caves up the top... Avoiding the monkeys trying to grab your possessions. If you're female make sure you cover your shoulders or you will have to purchase an item of clothing once there. 

4. The Petronas towers

Probably everyone who visits Kuala Lumpur will head to the Petronas towers at some point during their stay. We didn't pay to go into the towers themselves so just took photos outside before being typical British girls and getting excited about buying Marks & Spencer's wine and chocolate raisins! 

5. Shopping malls

Kuala Lumpur has a couple of really good malls which contain a number of western shops such as H&M, Topshop etc as well as some cheap clothes and accessory shops. I also managed to buy a new Iphone pretty cheap in Times Square mall which was our favourite. It has a bowling alley, cinema and a rollarcoaster which runs around the top (it's pretty expensive for just one ride though). 

Nightlife

Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur is the best night to be female as it's ladies night and we all drink for free! A number of bars take part including the skybar in the Traders hotel, it doesn't soud nice but their cocktail of Heineken, vodka and blackcurrent was delicious! Another bar worth checking out is Funtheque, the drinks were pretty gross but they had a live cabaret show which was amazing. Googling bars which participate in ladies night will give you an up to date list including the times that each runs their offers. 

On Halloween weekend we went to Zouk  (the sister club of Zouk Singapore) dressed up as dead people, we might have looked hilarious but it meant we got in for free! Drinks inside are a little on the expensive side but it's definitely worth the money.

Food

In Kuala Lumpur we ate in the mall food courts a lot where you can get noodle soups for around £1 and they have a number of restaurants to choose from. After ladies night we were in need of a big cheat meal so headed to Nandos in China town! They have quite a few in Kuala Lumpur and we made it our mission to find one during our travels.

Accommodation 

Our hostel, The Travel Hub is a really good place to stay in Kuala Lumpur. It's located in China town, close to an MRT station, breakfast is included as well as tea and coffee all day, plus they have a cool rooftop area where they have a free BBQ every Saturday so it comes highly recommended! 

The Philippines: Swimming with whale sharks

We absolutely loved our month in the Philippines however we definately made a fair amount of mistakes when it came to planning our route as we didn't really know anyone who had been before so we had to rely on maps and the internet to plan our journeys. This meant that once in the Philippines we found that certain journeys were not possible or would take too long so we zig zagged around a bit.

After a week in Boracay we spent a night in Iloilo and then took an overnight boat sharing a room with 240 people and a couple of roosters to Cebu.

Cebu

Our time in Cebu was spent in the city where we visited the Spanish fort, Carbon market, some really good malls and took jeepneys around the city (each ride is only around 9 pence).

Unfortunately we didn't spend any time on the beaches which we later found out are really nice so if visiting Cebu it's probably best to spend your time there. The nightlife in the city isn't amazing but we went to an Irish pub one night where Jen kicked the singers off the stage to perform her own solo and then onto a club, it was massively empty but we met a bunch of really lovely locals so had fun dancing with them.

Dumaguete

If visiting Dumaguete you definately have to stay at Harold's mansion. It has a rooftop area with live singers, the rooms have aircon and TVs and they provide free tea and coffee. Harold himself is really nice and goes out of his way to make you feel welcome, he took us for our first surf lesson one day, we weren't any good but we loved it all the same. There's some nightlife here due to it being a student town, hot springs and it's cheap to learn how to dive.

Bohol and Panglao island

The boat journey from Dumaguete to Bohol goes really quickly as they show films on a big TV. I'm not going to reccomend our accomodation "Paddles up" as we had to wake up every half an hour to brush ants off of our beds and sleep with the light on! It's definately much better to stay on Panglao island which is joined to Bohol by a bridge. 

Eduardos place and Alonaland are both really nice places to stay, they both have a pool, nice rooms and aircon. Alonaland is slightly cheaper, closer to the beach and has a TV.

You can do all of your activities in one day and take a public bus between them all. The furthest away is the Chocolate hills which due to the time of year looked nothing like chocolate but worth seeing all the same. A quick bus ride away is the Tarsier sanctuary which takes no longer than 15 minutes to walk through as it is tiny and then you can hop back on a bus to the zip line.

The zip lining here is amazing, you lie on your stomach and fly over the jungle and a river, it was definitely the highlight of our day. If like us you want to avoid going back to your bug infested room, the cinema is only 100 pesos and we joined a gym called "The gym" for a week which cost 1000 pesos.

The food in Panglao island is amazing and so cheap. There's lots of BBQ restaurants including Alona hidden dream where you can get seafood and mixed vegetables for a few pounds. There's also a restaurant called Trudis place which does a 3 course menu for around 3 pounds and best of all they bring out everyone's food at once which is very rare for Asia.

There wasn't a great deal to do in Panglao island (hence why we actually managed to go to the gym every day) however probably the best day i've had so far was spent here swimming with whale sharks. If you are going to Cebu it's best to do it from there to save yourself the 3 hour boat ride.

We set off early in the morning and arrived in Oslob where you have a quick briefing about what isn't allowed when you get into the water (suncream, touching etc.) and then you get taken in a paddle boat out to where the fishermen feed the sharks.

The guys on our boat were really nice. If you hire a GoPro from here (500 pesos) they will take all of your photos for you and help you get the best shots.

The whale sharks are absolutely massive and we didn't expect there to be so many of them. They come up right next to you opening their huge mouths to swallow fish but they're not scary (even when you touch them by accident!). It was such an amazing experience and I would love to do it again. You can also dive here but as the sharks are mostely at the surface I think snorkelling is better.

Manila

As we needed to save time we flew up to Manila which was to be our last stop before Malaysia. Manila wasn't our favourite place and I wouldn't suggest spending a lot of time here but our hostels "Pink Manila" and "Our awesome hostel" were both really good. Staying at both means you get to see both parts of the city which are completely different to each other. We didn't really do anything but eat here (undoing all the hard work we did at the gym the week before!) but in our defence the Philippines has malls filled with cheap, delicious food so it's not our fault we ate everything. Oh and TGI's does bottomless mojitos...winning!